Photo by Ed Aller of Ed Aller Design
Smoked meatball sub, with bolognese sauce and shaved cheese, new to the menu at The Butchery, part of David Sandusky's BEAST Butcher & Block in the Grove
It’s no secret that barbecue is a seasonal business. More home grills get fired up when the weather is warm than in the colder months. The same goes for commercial smokers. Demand for pulled pork, smoked brisket, and baby back ribs tends to wane in the late fall and winter. Case in point: In October, Bogart’s Smokehouse partner John Matthews announced that the Soulard restaurant would be "closing for the winter.”
Courtesy The Butchery
On Saturday night, David Sandusky, co-owner of three BEAST BBQ locations, announced that The Grove location would be pausing its barbecue menu for six to eight weeks.
“Honestly, it’s something I could have—and maybe should have—done months ago,” he says. “The only reason I kept things status quo was to keep my staff employed.”
Sandusky says he figured out a way to temporarily transfer team members to the Illinois locations "to anyone who wants to go,” part of the reason for the reshuffling at The Grove location.
The upside is that he's added sandwiches and a burger to the menu at The Butchery, a full-scale butcher shop and market located in the BEAST Butcher & Block building at 4156 Manchester. "We're going to hold onto our butts and try to survive this thing," he said in a Facebook video posted last night.
The pit master added that within the past year, as more people became accustomed to cooking at home, business has increased at The Butchery, which boasts an impressive menu ranging from fresh cuts of beef and pork (including a monster-size pork steak) to house-made items (including sausages, deli meats, charcuterie, and condiments). Dairy items are also available, as is toilet paper, for a buck per roll.
Courtesy the Butchery
Sandusky decided to piggyback on The Butchery’s success by creating an additional revenue stream, adding made-to-order items “based on what it already creates and does.” New sandwich items include a pit-roasted beef and cheese, smoked meatball sub, a pimento smash burger, an Italian beef, a cornbread catfish plate (available through Easter), and, just to keep things interesting, a snoot sandwich. The new menu items are produced using the live-fire grill in The Skullery, the display kitchen/event space next door to The Butchery.
Courtesy The Butchery
Pit-Roasted Beef & Cheese, a riff on a drive-through roast beef sandwich, includes shaved, charcoal-smoked chuck-eye, white cheddar cheese sauce, and a tallow-basted bun.
Photo by Ed Aller of Ed Aller design
Pimiento Smash Burger - 2, 5-ounce patties, white pimiento cheese, shaved onion, mayo, bread and butter pickles
The menu is available from 11 a.m.–7 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday, with pickup available at The Butchery. Menu items from a side project, Wing Runner, will also be available.
The chef is most excited about adding in-house delivery, however, a quality-control measure that also helps retain staff during lean times. To remain viable in the future, Sandusky sees restaurants establishing and maintaining “a bodega component” of sorts.
“Having already established a butcher shop, we have an automatic advantage,” he says. “Now you can have a hot sandwich for lunch and some pork chops to cook up for dinner, all delivered at the same time. Hell, if you just want a bag of potato chips and a bundle of firewood delivered, we can make that happen, too.”
Photography by Kevin A. Roberts
At BEAST Butcher & Block in The Grove, The Butchery is on the right side of the building.
